1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a weather strip for environmentally sealing a movable closure structure or panel, such as a hinged door, to the body of a vehicle.
2. Disclosure Information
Vehicle designers have used a veritable plethora of configurations and materials for weather stripping. Such materials and configurations have run the gamut from flat leather seals to gas-inflated multi-bulb weather strips. Flat strips, although having the advantage of being robust and easy to apply, are plagued by leaks and high door closing efforts. Additionally, flat weather strips, being relatively noncompliant, have little dimensional range, and are therefore intolerant of the dimensional stack-ups usually encountered in vehicular body manufacturing. Multi-bulb weather strips, while accommodating a considerable range of tolerance stack-ups, have been plagued by lack of integrity inasmuch as such weather strips have tended to roll over and thereby cease to function correctly when compressed to more than a very small degree.
The inventors of the present weather strip have devised a multi-bulb weather strip which accommodates a wide range of dimensional tolerance stack-ups, while sealing well and resisting failure resulting from roll over and other failure modes.